The present invention relates to a magnetic recording disk drive. More particularly, the present invention relates to a technology for preventing the deterioration of the head off-track characteristics resulting from the asymmetry of erase band widths which occurs when an angle (hereinafter referred to as a xe2x80x9cskew anglexe2x80x9d) between a relative movement direction of a magnetic head, which executes the data write/read operations, with respect to a recording medium for storing information and a direction of magnetization reversal region formed on the recording medium is not 0 degree.
FIG. 2 shows an observation result of a recording state of information written on a disk by a head, through a magnetic force microscope. Here, data 1 is written on a data 3 written as an old information. As shown in FIG. 2, erase bands 2 (areas for erasing the old information, though new information is not written thereto) exist on the sides of the track for the recorded data 1. In a state in which the head is positioned to a target track (so-called xe2x80x9ca following statexe2x80x9d), the adjacent tracks are not erased. However, the erase bands 2 erase the information of the adjacent tracks when a write operation is performed before a residual vibration caused by a seek operation (i.e., a settling vibration) is not sufficiently settled immediately after the head is moved from another track, or when the write operation is performed in a state in which a large offset is caused by an external shock. In order to prevent such an accidental data erasure, a conventional magnetic disk drive is generally so constituted as to stop the write operation when an offset greater than a write inhibit slice value determined by the device occurs with respect to a target write track based on position signals acquired every moment.
FIG. 3 illustrates a rotary actuator system which is a predominant system in the existing magnetic disk drives. In the rotary actuator system, an actuator 6 which supports a head 5 rotates with point xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d in the drawing as the center, so that the head 5 moves between tracks in a disk 4 for storing information. As shown in FIG. 4, in the rotary actuator system, angle xcfx86 between a relative movement direction of the magnetic head 5, which writes or reads the information, to the disk 4 for storing the information and the direction of a straight line, which connects the device position of the head 5 to the rotary actuator rotation center xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d, changes as the head 5 moves from the inner periphery towards the outer periphery. In consequence, as is shown in FIG. 5, angle xcex8 (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cskew anglexe2x80x9d) between a disk travelling direction and a reversal region of magnetization 9 which is formed on the disk 4 changes as the head 5 moves from the inner periphery to the outer periphery. A report has been made to the effect that the presence of this skew angle renders the erase bands asymmetry (K. Wiesen et al., IEEE Trans. Magn., Vol. 29, pp.4002-4004, 1993).
FIG. 6 schematically illustrates a recorded state on a disk when the information is written to the data track and adjacent tracks where the skew angle is 0 degree. It is assumed that the information is written first to the data track, then to the inner adjacent track, and finally to the outer adjacent track. No difference occurs in the width of the regions erased at the left and right ends of the data tack when the track effectively written has width Tww and the erase band widths on the right and left (which are equal on the inner and outer peripheral sides) are EB as shown in FIG. 6.
FIG. 7 schematically illustrates a recorded state on a disk when the information is written to the data track and adjacent tracks in the same way as in FIG. 6, on the assumption that the skew angle is not 0 degree but takes a finite value. It is assumed also that the information is written first to the data track, then to the inner adjacent track, and finally to the outer adjacent track, in the same way as in FIG. 6. The effective recorded track width is xe2x80x9cTww(s)xe2x80x9d. The erase band width on the inner side is xe2x80x9cEB(s)inxe2x80x9d, and the erase band width on the outer side is xe2x80x9cEB(s)outxe2x80x9d. FIG. 7 shows the state where the erase band width EB(s)in is greater than the erase band width EB(s)out. As shown in FIG. 7, when the information is written at positions having a track pitch spaced apart by Tww(s)+EB(s)out on the adjacent tracks of the data track, the erase band of the outer adjacent track is in touch with the data track region of the data track. Therefore, the data of the data track is destroyed by the outer adjacent track if the track pitch becomes smaller than this track pitch. However, the data in the inner adjacent track, in which the data is recorded with the same distance, is not yet destroyed in the data track region of the data track. It can be thus appreciated that if the inner and outer erase bands of the data track are asymmetric, the recorded data track is first destroyed from one of the adjacent tracks with the decrease of the track pitch.
A 747 curve (J. K. Lee et al., IEEE Trans. Magn., Vol.26, pp.2475-2477, 1990) is affected by the presence/absence of the asymmetry of the erase bands. FIG. 8 shows an example of the calculation of the erase band asymmetry dependence on the 747 curve using an algorithm described in article xe2x80x9cF. Tomiyama et al., IEEE Trans. Magn., Vol.34, pp.1970-1972, 1998xe2x80x9d. It can be appreciated that the off-track capability reduces in a region having a small track pitch due to the presence of the erase band asymmetry. This results from the fact that a greater one of the right and left erase bands squeezes the adjacent track and starts erasing a part of the information written on the adjacent track.
Even if the greater one of the right and left erase bands partially erases the adjacent track data and the off-track capability reduces due to the erase band asymmetry, in the conventional magnetic disk drives in which the right and left write inhibit slice values are set to the same value, the sole way to cope with this problem is to reduce the write inhibit slice value as small as possible and to limit it to a strict value in order to protect the data. However, if the write inhibit slice value is set to a small value, the write operation must be inhibited frequently due to the temporary deterioration of the positioning accuracy resulting from the disturbance of a certain limited level. In consequence, latency increases and the drive performance reduces. In order to secure the drive performance, the reduction of the write inhibit slice value must be limited to a minimum necessary value.
This holds true not only of the write inhibit slice value but also of a seek completion slice level. The term xe2x80x9cseek completion slice levelxe2x80x9d represents hereby the slice level at which the completion of the seek operation is judged in the following manner when the head is approaching a target track in the seek operation. The distance of the head from the target track position is compared with a predetermined seek completion slice level, and then the completion is determined when the head distance is smaller than the seek completion slice level. In the same way as is in the case of the write inhibit slice value, even if the residual vibration having the same amplitude is observed between the seek operation from the inner periphery to the outer periphery and the seek operation from the outer periphery to the inner periphery, the squeezed margin between data track and outer adjacent track is different from that between data track and inner adjacent track when the erase band asymmetry exists. For this reason, it has been necessary to limit the seek completion condition to a small range by limiting the seek completion condition to that of the seek operation having the higher likelihood of the data destruction. The reduction of the seek completion slice level results in the increase of the seek time, so that the drive performance is likely to be reduced. Therefore, in the same way as in the case of the write inhibit slice value, the reduction of the seek completion slice level must be limited to a minimum necessary level from the aspect of the drive performance.
With the background described above, the present invention contemplates to prevent the deterioration of the head off-track characteristics and the reduction of the drive performance even if the erase band asymmetry due to the skew angle exists.
Because the outer adjacent track is likely to erase the data track at the position where the erase band on the inner peripheral side is greater than the erase band on the outer peripheral side, the write inhibit slice with respect to the offset for the inner peripheral side is made smaller than the write inhibit slice with respect to the offset for the outer peripheral side.
In the means for solving the problem described above, the inner periphery is paraphrased to the outer periphery at the position where the erase band on the outer peripheral side is greater than the erase band on the inner peripheral side, on the contrary.
The seek completion slice level of the seek operation from the inner periphery to the outer periphery may be set to a different level from that of the seek operation from the outer periphery to the inner periphery, and the seek condition on the side, in which the adjacent track is more likely to be erased, may be set to a severer condition.